What “Binding and Loosing” Really Means

Once we understand Jesus’ words to Peter in the framework of their Jewish background, the meaning of the binding and loosening become clear. The Lutheran professor Tord Fornberg explains that “Peter stands out as a kind of Chief Rabbi, who binds and loosens, in the sense of declaring something to be forbidden or permitted.” In support of this interpretation is the promise Jesus gives with the authority. Not only is Peter given the ability to bind and loosen, but “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:19).

This promise of heavenly ratification is extremely Jewish. Hans Bayer, a Presbyterian theologian, concedes that in rabbinic usage, “binding” and “loosening” signify that “various decisions especially of the Sanhedrin,” primarily interpreting the law or including or excluding members from the community, were “viewed as subsequently sanctioned by God.” As Rabbi Kauffman Kohler explains: 

The various [rabbinical] schools had the power “to bind and to loose”; that is, to forbid and to permit; and they could bind any day by declaring it a fast-day. This power and authority, vested in the rabbinical body of each age or in the Sanhedrin . . . received its ratification and final sanction from the celestial court of justice.

For instance, the rabbis taught that the liturgical year was set by the earthly authorities and that this calendar was then ratified in heaven. It’s within this context that we can understand the prophet Joel’s admonition to the priests to “sanctify a fast” and “call a solemn assembly” (Joel 1:13-14). Such an authority might sound trivial today, but the Jewish people centered their lives on the liturgical calendar. We get hints of this in the New Testament. When Jesus returns to Galilee, “the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had gone to the feast” (John 4:45). A few verses later, Jesus returns to Jerusalem, because “there was a feast of the Jews” (5:1). The religious leaders capable of setting these feasts thus wielded a tremendous amount of authority over the daily lives of the people.  

This authority wasn’t limited to liturgical determinations. It also included the ability to settle disputes about the interpretation of Scripture. The Levitical priests were traditionally the authoritative interpreters of the Torah, which is why God laments that for “a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law” (2 Chron. 15:3). If there were questions about “one kind of legal right and another,” if a case became “too difficult for you,” then you could bring it to the priests, whereby “you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision,” and whatever “the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the verdict which they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left” (Deut. 17:8-13; cf. 2 Chron. 19:8-11). This commandment is shocking, since the language mirrors the fidelity we owe to God’s own commands: “you shall be careful to do therefore as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left” (Deut. 5:32).  

The priest, and particularly the high priest, was viewed as being divinely protected with a sort of infallibility, in the particular context of binding and loosening. It’s for this reason that, when Jesus and the apostles are arrested, they are brought before the high priest and the Sanhedrin (John 18:19-40; Acts 5:17-52). At first blush, this seems to be the most obvious counter-example to the idea of any sort of high priestly infallibility: how could the high priest Caiaphas have been infallible in any context, given how he treated Jesus? But that’s not how the Evangelists saw it. A few chapters earlier, when the Sanhedrin were debating whether or not to arrest Jesus in the first place, St. John presents the pivotal moment in this way (John 11:49-52): 

One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish.” He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. 

The Holy Spirit was working through the high priest, enabling him to speak prophetically, perhaps even in spite of himself, because he was “high priest that year.” What’s fascinating is that at one and the same moment, you see the evil of the man and the orthodoxy of what he’s teaching. It was evil of Caiaphas to want Jesus dead. But it was true (and, John tells us, prophetic!) for him to say Jesus should die for Israel and the whole people of God.  

If Jesus means his words to Peter in the way a Jewish listener would understand them, then he seems to be giving him something like infallibility, by promising that the Holy Spirit will work through Peter to ensure that he doesn’t teach anything contrary to divine law and that his earthly decisions will be ratified in heaven. To readers who are approaching this from a Protestant background, this might all seem shocking. Keith Mathison speaks for many a Protestant when he warns that “if the church is infallible, appeals to history, tradition, and Scripture are superfluous.” After all, didn’t the Jewish leaders nullify the word of God by imposing their manmade tradition (Mark 7:13)? It’s a reasonable objection, but it begs the question. The whole point of infallibility is that the pope won’t (and can’t!) contradict God, so a question that begins by asking what happens when he does is a bit like “disproving” the inerrancy of Scripture by asking, “But what do you do when Scripture is wrong?” In fact, far from rendering Scripture superfluous, infallibility is the only way of living out full obedience to what Christ commands in Scripture. That’s a big claim, but I think that it can be proven through four relatively uncontroversial points. 

This excerpt is only part of the biblical and historical case for the papacy. To keep reading, purchase your own copy of Pope Peter today!